Saturday, January 07, 2006

Blogging in the open

A lot has been said of the bitchiness of a certain Mother Nature. But one must give her credit when credit is due. She has conjured up more or less a month of flawless comfortable days in winter, the maximum seldom dipping below the 16C (60F) mark. And this has meant tremendous opportunities to walk around, bask in the mild winter sun and blog in the open.

Certainly, this pleasure comes with a hefty price tag to some other people. Mother nature is not being a bitch to me right now because my home in all probability is not in flames. Other people here in Texas or Oklahoma are not so lucky. A bitch to them she is.

The previously blogged about trip around Texas has got me moderately obsessed with photography. This winter, Texas saw three people (a couple of geeky guys and cute girl) armed with cameras roam around taking photographs ranging from the provisionally exciting to the awfully mundane. Some of the best, it is assumed, shall pop up (mutilated and photoshopped?) here.

I'm pretty bad at photography, and am a believer in the point and shoot philosophy. The subtlelities of exposure and aperture control have yet to diffuse into my eternally dense brain. Needless to say the photographs I take suffer with an apalling lack of creativity.

So, what does the coming semester have in store for me? A couple of exciting courses, for one. A new roommate, qualifying exams for the PhD and a trip to Purdue. The course on turbulence sounds promising. I hope I get to get my hands dirty with the math this time ... the previous course back at IIT was more qualitative than quantitative, nevertheless probably the best course I ever underwent.

I hope not to be disillusioned like I was the previous semester. The courses are better this semester. I shall start research this semester too .. things are actually looking up this semester. I have a gut feeling that I will start liking my life a lot more henceforth.

Another thing that needs to be done this semester is, of course, getting the driver's license. The problem, of course, is that the DMV is across the highway, and there's no way to get there. Some more of that beggary will have to be performed ... perhaps sometime next week ... I need to beg someone with a car to take me there.